


unspoken something

by Ryah_Ignis



Series: Season 13 Codas [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x03 Coda, M/M, but i suppose i've got lots of wayward time to do that!, i really wanted to write something about patience, so here have destiel angst instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 12:43:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12557636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: “You just left,” Dean continues, quieter now.  “I still need you, Cas.  You can’t bail on me now.”They hadn’t even got time.  There had been barely a breath between Lucifer’s possession and the soul bomb and then everything with—with Mom had gotten in the way.  He hadn’t even tried to fix that horrible voice in the back of Cas’s brain that told him he was worthless.“Come back.  Prove to me you’re listening and come back.  Please.  I need you here with me.  I can’t do this without you.  I don’t want to do this without you.”Dean is still grieving and Sam...just doesn't get it.  13x03 Coda.





	unspoken something

Sam watches his brother go, completely unsure of what to say.  His grief is different than Dean’s; he’s terrified of ending up the way he did after Dean got dragged to Hell, terrified of becoming the man who’d allowed himself to grow dependent on Ruby.  So instead he represses.  Talks about openness and feelings until he’s blue in the face before he lets a single one of his own slip free.

He misses Cas and Mom, too.  It’s just—well.  He’s better at hiding it.

But there’s something in the way Dean’s voice broke on Cas’s name, something about the way he nearly crashed the car on the way back to the bunker with Jack in tow when Zeppelin came on the radio, a quiet gasp of _Cas_ on his lips.  Something about his brother’s relationship with the angel that Sam has never quite been able to name.

Well.  There’s a lot about Dean he hasn’t been able to name.  A lot about Dean he doesn’t _want_ to name.

So instead of going after him, Sam sets about making peanut butter and jelly, trying to ignore the memory of doing just that for Cas once.  He tries not to think of what molecules would taste like.

When he finishes, he carts the meal off to what was once Kevin’s room.  Now, Jack sits curled in a small ball against the headboard, chin resting on his knees.  Sam sets the plate down on his nightstand without a word.

He can probably hear long distances, anyway, and Sam doesn’t want to know how much truth there is to what Dean had said.

* * *

 

He can’t deal with Sam right now.  Dean knows that, soon, he will do something he’ll regret, so he swipes a half drunk beer bottle from two mornings ago off of the war room table and stalks back towards his room.  There’s got to be one place in the world where it doesn’t feel like his chest is going to cave in.

He runs into Jack in the corridor.  For a moment, anger explodes like a pent-up geyser of grief and an unspoken _something_.  The next, everything goes strangely quiet and still.  The feeling of sheer nothing settles over him like a shock blanket—he’s had a fair few folded around his shoulders by well-meaning sheriffs.  Jack probably could have listened in to that conversation even if he’d been halfway around the world.  There’s no reason to chastise him for standing in the doorway.

Still. “Heard what you came for?” he snaps.

Jack shrinks away.  And for a moment, Dean is twelve years old again and Dad is swaying where he’s standing framed in the doorway of yet another nameless dive motel.  _History repeats,_ he thinks grimly, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

Without looking back as Jack flinches again, Dean storms to his room.  He kicks a stray beer bottle out of his way before flopping on the bed, face up.  Even with his face not buried in the pillow like he wants it to be, he still can’t breathe.

Something is digging into his back.

Scowling, Dean reaches for the object.  The moment his fingers brush it, he knows what it is.  Fingers trembling, he brings it up to his face.  His own handwriting scrawls bold across the sticker on the front.

A mixtape.  God, how could he have just given that to him and hope he’d know?

Dean closes his eyes and brings the tape up to his nose.  Though he’d deny it if asked, he sniffs it, hoping to find some trace of Cas’s weirdly clean scent on it.  Nothing.  The lump in his throat grows so thick and heavy that it’s a miracle he can even breathe past it.

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, Dean lurches upright in bed and hurls the tape as hard as he can against the wall.  It bounces off, leaving a chip in the paint.  Some of the tape spills out in a wreath on the ground.

“How could you!” he shouts suddenly, not caring that Jack is probably standing warily outside his door while snooping for more clues, or that Sam is probably only a few hallways away in the kitchen making one of his godawful smoothies.

 “You just _left_ ,” Dean continues, quieter now.  “I still need you, Cas.  You can’t bail on me now.”

They hadn’t even got time.  There had been barely a breath between Lucifer’s possession and the soul bomb and then everything with—with Mom had gotten in the way.  He hadn’t even tried to fix that horrible voice in the back of Cas’s brain that told him he was worthless. 

“Come back.  Prove to me you’re listening and come back.  Please.  I need you here with me.  I can’t do this without you.  I don’t _want_ to do this without you.”

He clenches his eyes shut, hands fisted at his sides, mouth moving in the same soundless prayer over and over and over again.  He hears a rustle, but when he opens his eyes, he knows it was just the sound of his fan overhead, not the gentle stirring of wings.

“I never told you that I—” His voice breaks. “Cas.  God.  You had to have known.  Right?  I mean—come on.  It was obvious.”

It had to have been. 

“I mean, who else would I wander around Purgatory looking for, huh?  Sammy, yeah, but I wouldn’t have prayed to him every night.  Not like that, anyway.”

Still nothing.  There’s no point to continuing, but Dean does it anyway.

“I know I screwed up.  You said once that you—that you didn’t care if you lived or died.  I never asked, I guess.  It’s kind of a hunter thing, you know?  But you—you always saw life as this precious gift, not something you could barter.  I should have asked.”

He can feel tears pricking at his eyes and doesn’t bother wiping at them.

“I kicked you out the bunker.  Beat you up while I was high on the Mark.  Never asked after the attack dog thing, or the Lucifer thing.  And I should have.  And I’m sorry.”

He stares down at his clasped hands.  This is as close to a prayer as he will ever get again.

“What I’m saying is, Cas, if you’ve got a choice—if you’ve got Chuck or Billy or Death or God knows—Chuck knows?—what else prodding you up there, you’ve got to come back to me.  Because there’s a hell of a lot I haven’t said.”

When he finally looks up, he’s still alone.

 


End file.
